a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Utah Jazz Media Day: The Middle-Aged Men

These three need to get Enes to teach them how to make love to the camera.

Al Jefferson** I’m going to start telling people I’m from Santa Barbara in another year or so…I’m looking for [a place in Santa Barbara] right now…I think I seen and did everything you can do at P3…when the season was over and I took like a month off and I went there in June, I didn’t lose nothing. I didn’t lose what I gained the year before, and that was very important…so it was good.

**On Mo Williams: I been knowing Mo since I was in 9th grade. He was a senior in high school…he from Jackson and I’m from Prentiss, so it’s 45 minutes away, and my AAU coach, Larry Stamps, when I first met him he ask me to be on his AAU team, he took me to a Mo Williams game…he was the number one player in the state. He was the man. He was the guy. And when I went to go watch him play, his school was a 5A, and that’s, like, big. My school was a 3A. So when I went to watch him play, I thought he the best player I ever seen in my life…And he left Alabama to come to the Jazz, of course he got drafted by the Jazz, and I was going to Alabama just ’cause of him. But he left. You can’t blame a man for leaving. So that how much I looked up to him, [that] I would want to go to Alabama to play with him.

**On Randy Foye: I know Randy real well. We spent two years together in Minnesota, and my opinion, I felt like they had him playing the point guard when he really was a “two.” And he’s played hurt; he was playing hurt the whole two years he was there. That show you the type of heart he had. So to see him have that breakout year last year with the Clippers, healthy, playing at the 2-guard, then to find out he gon be with me again in Utah, it was just, I was happy to hear it. And Randy, he’s a good person, good dude on and off the floor. Great teammate. If you having a bad game, he gon come and boost you up. We need that type of guy on the team.

**On pick and roll defense: Me and Kevin [probably O’Connor, probably not Murphy] had a good conversation about the defense pick and roll. He expect me to be better, so that’s something I really wanted to work on. When the boss man tell you that you need to get better at sum’n, you gotta have that in your head when you go into the offseason. So that’s sum’n I worked on, wanted to work on my explosive[ness] and be able to get out, move my feet when Tony Parker coming off that pick and roll, and then be able to get back to Tim [Duncan]. So that’s one of the things I focus on.

**On having 16 more games to haze Enes: Well, I had my plans, but the boss man Kevin* told me that I gotta take it easy on him. So Imma slide off of him a little bit…everything will work itself out. He still gon be my rookie, regardless,** forever.

* That Kevin O’Connor, what a party pooper.
** Does anyone else still think of Boozer every time you hear the word “regardless”?

**UDQM: David Locke on Enes’ new body: The little murmurs are that it’s totally different. That he can go up.
Al: I mean, he was explosive last year, so.

No one asked Al about BTS’ departure. For shame, media, for shame.

Paul Millsap**Is it weird to not see anyone who’s been with the team for more than two years? It’s kinda weird, but you know how it is. That’s the life. That’s the life we chose. But it’s good to see these new faces. I know a lot of these guys, and they’re gonna be key contributors to this team.

**Contract year: It’s another year. Another year. Another year you’re trying to get better. Another year that trying to get to that ultimate goal, which is to win that championship. You worry about that in the offseason, but the season has started now.

**On the Jazz offering him the largest extension possible: I’m grateful. Very grateful. It shows that they care. It shows they want me on this team…just gonna see how this season plays out and see what happens after that.

**Would your first choice be to re-sign with the Jazz? Absolutely. Why wouldn’t it be?

**Did you do anything specifically to play small forward? I never do anything specifically to play–I’ve been blessed with the ability to be able to go out there and transform my game into playing on the perimeter and also go down low and bang. So, just been able to work on everything; ball-handling, majorly. Working off the bounce, things of that nature that’s gonna help me if I’m ever thrown out there on the perimeter.

**Summer: I took my family to Jamaica. Relaxed. I always gotta do something, keep my mind stimulated, so I’m always doing things with my family. Trying to get away from basketball is tough, but that’s what your family’s there for. They help me do that. [What’d you do there that was off the hook?] Nothing. Completely nothing. Which is what I did, just get away and do nothing.

**On Derrick Favors: With Derrick being who he is, being an extreme talent, he push me, motivates me everyday. And I do the same for him. So that’s the good thing about it. Practices, they’re very competitive. We’re learning from each other, which is good. [ He said he was trying to steal your moves this summer.] I’m sure. That’s good. I’m very excited about that. I’m glad that he’s doing that, that means he’s being a student of the game. He’s trying to get better. [But] A lot of my moves, they’re patented, copywritten. (laughs)

Marvin Williams**On moving: I’ve been good. No kids, I didn’t have any kids to move; no wife. So it was just me and my parents came out when I got traded and kind of found me a place to stay and got me set up.

** On his childhood: Basketball was my life…I played basketball, went to school. I have two younger brothers, I kind of made sure they stayed straight, and that was pretty much my life. Still is my life really, I guess.

**Summer: I went to Spain. I went to Barcelona, Spain. Me and my brothers and a couple of my buddies went back in August. I had a really good time over there.

** I really like Gordon Hayward. I like his game; he plays hard. Alec Burke* plays hard. Like I said, I knew Mo, obviously. Al, I know what he’s capable of doing. Paul, I know what he’s capable of doing. So I think we got some good guys here that can really contribute, so I’m really excited to get going.

*Marvin, like Mo, also gets one more brownie point than Boler for getting the first name right.

**UDQM: Growing up, Al and I played with each other in high school and All-Star games, so we were familiar with each other.

**UDQM: I think that’s the good thing about training camp. If there is a good thing about going twice a day, you do get a chance to get a feel for guys.

DeMarre Carroll** Father’s a pharmacist and he’s a pastor, and my mother’s a [registered nurse] and she’s a minister too…my mother and father, they really intelligent people and they basically my two role models.

** Talks to Tony Allen, who was his mentor in Memphis, daily about his role on the court. Worked out over the summer in L.A. with Paul George, Ty Lawson, and Danny Granger.

** I got with this t-shirt company that’s called Wreck Mob T-shirt Company and they making me t-shirts. And one of the t-shirts, it got two different designs. One of them, I trademark a quote, “Hard work is a talent” and on the front, it’s “SMD* / DMC” — “shake my dreads / DeMarre Carroll.” That’s one of the t-shirts, and then I got another t-shirt with me actually shaking my dreads. It’s just for the fans.

* Not to be confused with Ronnie Brewer’s message to Kevin O’Connor, “HMD.”

** We committed to playing Jazz basketball. We committed to doing little things, all the way back to Karl Malone time, and John Stockton time, they had hard-nosed guys. I feel like if we can continue to do that, go into training camp, errbody push each other, I think the sky’s the limit for this team.

**On Enes’ tweets: I tried to talk to him and tell him, you know, you can’t put your whole life on Twitter. There’s a lot of people following you, a lot of people watching you man, and it’s a bad image for you. So, he’s learning, but he’s young. You gotta understand, he just turned 20. He’s like a big baby. We gonna take care of him though.

**On Enes’ new physique: He look like one of them guys that be on GQ Magazine.

**What’s it like to have a tattoo of your brother who has passed sitting on your left bicep every day? It, it just allow me to realize how blessed I am. My brother…he was my oldest brother, he died from a brain tumor. I was seven years old. I was at the point, I could see a lot of him swelling, a lot of the things coming along…he even passed in our family home. It was such a bad time, but at the same time I think it allowed our family to even get closer and realize that we can’t take nothing for granted.

My mom and dad are both pastors and they pray for me each and every day. That’s why I go through life and I always think positive and I always say “stay positive,” because it’s somebody who can have it worse than you…so everyday when I look at him on the left of my arm, I just tell myself whenever I step on the court, I’m going to go as hard as I can, because today is not promised to nobody. Tomorrow is not promised to nobody. … I hope me telling my story can help other people who might be going through the same thing.